


coda

by cosmicpoet



Series: goro week 2019 [6]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: Akira Plays Piano, Angst with a Happy Ending, Depression, Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Game, Suicide, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-07 16:34:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20820404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicpoet/pseuds/cosmicpoet
Summary: Five years after the events of the engine room, Goro discovers that Akira isn't coping as well as he pretends he is. Overcome by the worry and fear about what happened to his mother, so long ago, all he knows how to do is run away.For the first time in his life, he has someone who'll run after him.





	coda

He hasn’t quite managed to forgive himself just yet. In fact, scratch that, Goro still wakes up half-screaming whenever he finds himself alone in bed, even if Akira has only gotten up to use the bathroom. Five years have passed since he found himself not-quite dead, bloody and bruised in the engine room of that godawful ship, and he still sometimes regrets that he dragged himself out of the Metaverse instead of closing his eyes and hoping to die. _Again._

It’s something that Akira has learned, too, the way Goro will claw in his sleep for something to hold onto - in the first few months of their tentative relationship, it had been a tightrope game of trial and error until he realised that the best thing he can do is simply stay next to him until they’re both awake and able to rationalise the feelings that come thick and fast in dreams, impossible to reason with when trauma begins to take over the throes of sleep.

Goro’s nightmares aren’t every night, not the way they used to be. He still doesn’t have _dreams, _but he’ll take the blissful nothingness over the harsh memories that contort into shadows in his sleep-laden mind any day, even if he does wake up feeling like he’s choking on the memories of a death that wasn’t quite the end of the game. Akira is there, of course, and Goro rolls over to see him staring at the ceiling, deep in thought with that beautifully familiar look on his face - he loves the way Akira gets when he’s composing something in his mind. Ah, now that’s a thought; perhaps he should ask Akira to play for him, today. He always finds some sense of homely comfort in the soft piano music that, so often these days, floats distant and dreamlike from the conservatory of their small country house.

There was a period of time, three months ago, where Akira didn’t play for weeks on end. Goro still doesn’t know why.

“Morning, darlin’,” Akira says, his voice still thick with the disuse of sleep, even though he’s evidently been awake for a little while. It’s one of the things that Goro loves about him - the way his accent becomes more prominent in the early mornings and late nights, when he’s too tired to keep up the mask that they both still wear in public.

“How long have you been awake?” Goro asks. It’s quiet, but underneath it all there’s the question he’s really trying to ask; _‘Will you ever get tired of me needing you?’_

“Not long. C’mere,” he opens his arms and Goro curls up next to him. It feels like home, like safety, the way Akira plays with his hair and lays gentle kisses on his forehead - right now, he could almost fall back asleep in the bliss of it all, but knowing his luck, he’d only be thrown into the midst of a horrible nightmare and everything would be ruined all over again.

“I was thinking of making tamagoyaki for breakfast,” Akira continues, “would you like that?”

Goro nods. 

It’s another day, and he can’t keep dwelling on the past - it’s harmful to his recovery, he doesn’t need his therapist or Akira to tell him that much. It feels like a daring act to be _happy, _even if it doesn’t always feel deserved or authentic, but watching Akira cook with a little sleepy smile on his face, standing in the soft light of their kitchen, Goro can almost bring himself to forget that, in another life, he held a gun to his head and hoped that it would jam.

They eat together, and the silence isn’t as uncomfortable as it used to be. He needs to feel useful, so he starts clearing away their plates the moment they’ve finished eating, ignoring Akira’s protests - perhaps it’s selfish, but Goro knows that he could lie down and Akira would take care of the world for him, and he doesn’t want to feel that weak and helpless ever again.

Instead, Akira sits at the piano and hums softly to himself, taking out a pencil and writing down some sheet music. At first, he only played simple songs by other composers, but with the encouragement from Goro, he’s started composing things by himself; it all started after that strange period in which he didn’t play at all, and Goro is glad that he picked it back up again. There’s comfort in his sweet music.

Another lesson that Goro has learned is that he can’t put so much focus on being presentable to the public. It’s tough for him not to compulsively cover his dark circles and freckles with a light layer of concealer; even now, he rifles through the bathroom cabinet, looking for his old makeup bag, his comfort item. Everything they usually use to get ready in the morning is left out on the counter, so the bathroom cabinets and drawers are filled with old, empty shampoo bottles and various other things that should probably be thrown out; Goro checks inside them all, anyway, wanting just to hold a tube of foundation and tell himself that he doesn’t need to fake it any more.

As he rifles through them, his hand closes around a small box - it feels unfamiliar in his hands, and he pulls it out, turning it over.

It’s a medicine box, inside of which there are blister packs of medication that have evidently been being taken for a while. Scared, he reads the label on the front - it’s prescribed to Akira, and he recognises the medication name as a particularly strong brand of antidepressants that he himself trialled years ago, finding that they didn’t really work for him.

Akira is on antidepressants?

It feels all too much like voyeurism, but what hurts the most is the fact that this is evidently a _secret; _something Akira felt the need to hide from Goro - is he not trusted? Not loved? Heaven help him, is he not wanted? He whispers something ugly and cruel to himself in the bitter light of the bathroom, before putting the medication back in the drawer and falling to his knees.

Suddenly, he’s overcome by another flashback. Yes, he’s just as much of a liar as Akira is; he told him that they stopped a year after the Phantom Thieves disbanded, but the truth is that he still finds himself gripped by the clammy hands of memory that force him back into reliving his trauma. And there’s his mother’s body, there’s Judas, there’s the role he’s making himself play again and again; his life for thirty pieces of silver, his mother’s life for the trade-off of Goro’s childhood dissipating into the wind.

He grips her, or perhaps he’s gripping his own legs, tearing deep into the roots of the death that started it all. His mother _killed herself, _and now Akira is depressed too, and isn’t it just what _scum _like Goro deserves to lose everyone he ever loves to the same fate - maybe it’s not depression, maybe it’s _him, _maybe he’s poison seeping in and destroying everything he’s ever had the sheer dumb luck to love.

Like a snake, he’s bitten Akira where it hurts and now he’s having to watch the aftereffects of his venom coursing through the man who used to be Joker. It wasn’t enough to kill him once, he had to do it _twice, _of course this is his fault - the longer he stays with Akira, the more likely he is to come home and find him bleeding out in some bathtub or foaming at the mouth with eyes glassy and dead, god, eyes so, _so dead._

The only thing he can do is leave. He has to - for Akira’s sake. Without him, Akira will get better, it’s _Goro _who’s been dragging him down, Goro who makes everything worse for everyone he inflicts his lethal presence on. Running away feels more like home, right now, than all the breakfasts and piano music and ‘_I love you’s _ever could.

He slips out just as Akira begins to play the coda.

He doesn’t get far, mainly because he’s unsure of where he wants to go. There are a lot of thoughts in his head, but none of them are positive or comforting; the overarching ache in his chest and the intrusive thoughts in his head tell him that the only way to prevent those he loves from killing themselves is to kill _himself _first. Sure, Akira might be sad for a bit, but he’d eventually forget, just like the whole world forgot the Detective Prince the moment that awful engine room opened up for his supposed final act.

Sitting at the edge of a bridge, he reaches in the pocket of his coat for the emergency packet of cigarettes that Akira doesn’t know he has. He quit two years ago, but he always told himself that, were things to crash down all over again, he’d have one final relapse before the true end of everything. For a moment, he just turns the packet over and over in his hands, wondering if this is the right choice after all; as much as he’s overcome with his own depression, he’s still got the rational mind of a detective. Perhaps he truly is just overthinking things? 

Still, it’s not like he can convince himself that the world is a better place for having him in it, so he lights the cigarette and hates himself just a little bit more.

Beneath him, the waves beckon to hold his body like a lover, to crash into him and love him in the only way he deserves to be loved - violently, cruelly, the antithesis of Akira’s soft morning kisses and the way he traces his fingertips across the scars from Mementos littered across Goro’s body. Taking a deep breath, he swings himself back and forward, daring himself to slip into a choice that he’s not even wholly sure he wants to make.

And then there are hands on his shoulders. He turns around, almost falling off the ledge by virtue of sheer surprise, a feeling that isn’t lessened at all by seeing that Akira is standing next to him, his strong hands holding him back from the jump that he knows he never had the courage to make in the first place. He takes the cigarette from Goro’s fingers and takes a drag himself, throwing it over the edge into the water below.

“You don’t smoke,” Goro says.

“Neither do you,” Akira says, disguising a cough, “god, that shit’s disgusting.”

“So am I.”

“None of that.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Goro whispers, closing his eyes so that he won’t be able to see Akira’s reaction.

“Tell you what?”

“That you’re depressed.”

“Can we talk about this at home?”

Goro notices that Akira is still wearing his pyjamas - he must have rushed out of the house the moment he realised that Goro was gone, which explains how he found him so quickly. He wouldn’t put it past an ex-Phantom Thief to be able to follow him.

“No,” Goro says, “we’re talking about it now.”

“Really? In my pyjamas? In the middle of the street?”

“Yes. Then it’s uncomfortable for both of us, and if we talk about this at home I’ll only associate this feeling with being in my safe place.”

“Alright. For you.”

“How long have you been on antidepressants?”

“Three months.”

“Is that why you stopped playing piano?”

“Yes.”

“So why do you play again?”

“Because the antidepressants are working.”

“And is that why you didn’t tell me?”

“No.”

“Then _why, _Akira? Am I just so worthless that you don’t trust me?”

“How could you think that?”

“Because I can’t see another reason why you’d keep it from me!”

“Because I was scared of setting you back!” Akira shouts, immediately letting go of Goro and clasping his hands across his mouth. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”

“Will you _stop it, _Akira? Stop putting everyone before yourself, it’s not helping anyone for you to pretend like you can fix the world! It just feels like you’re shutting people out so you don’t seem weak!”

“That’s not… I…”

“If we’re recovering, we’re doing it together.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Save it. Please… don’t.”

“Why did you run away?”

“I thought you’d end up like my mother.”

“I… you thought I’d…”

“I know it’s not rational. But I thought if you were away from me, you’d get better.”

“Goro, I _am _getting better!”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be so needy… I shouldn’t…”

“Stop it. Please, just stop it. Stop putting yourself down. I should have told you. I’m sorry I didn’t.”

“Well, I know now. I hate the idea that you’re struggling on your own. It doesn’t do anyone any good to bottle up your feelings and play the leader… we’re past that, now. We’re just recovering at our own pace, right? And it’s only fair that I get to help you out just as much as you help me.”

“So I do manage to help you?”

“Did you doubt that?” Goro says.

“I doubt it every day, if I’m being honest.”

“I like you being honest, even if it hurts to hear that you think that way.”

“Let’s go home,” Akira holds his hand, “I want to show you the song I’m working on. I can’t seem to get the ending right.”

**Author's Note:**

> Please comment if you liked this!


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